In Peopleware, they also observed that some programmers did not themselves appear to produce much, but their presence on a team made others more productive. They were not managers, they were not leads, they just helped the team work better together, in some fashion, "managing" out or across rather than up or down.
I will jump the shark and speculate that these gel-members tend to be female more often than male, and the gelling-like effect comes from how their presence and patterns of behavior influence the group dynamic. I will further speculate that the dearth of women in development incurs a hidden cost to productivity, since statistically, fewer teams will have women, and consequently, the incidence of gel-members will be lower, and teams more fragmented.
I think there is a business opportunity here somewhere, or maybe it has already been realized in places, but the players have not been eager to trumpet their results.
I will jump the shark and speculate that these gel-members tend to be female more often than male, and the gelling-like effect comes from how their presence and patterns of behavior influence the group dynamic. I will further speculate that the dearth of women in development incurs a hidden cost to productivity, since statistically, fewer teams will have women, and consequently, the incidence of gel-members will be lower, and teams more fragmented.
I think there is a business opportunity here somewhere, or maybe it has already been realized in places, but the players have not been eager to trumpet their results.